Hydrosols

Certified Organic or Biodynamic Agriculture 

Ideally, certified organic plant material should be used in the making of hydrosols and oils. A second choice would be chemical-free plant material, sometimes called noncertified organic. Noncertified organic is becoming more widely available as farmers move toward organic certification but have not been chemical-free long enough to become certified, a process that takes anywhere from three to seven years, depending on the country.

There are now many recognized and respected organic certification organizations around, the world, and they have strict guidelines that must be met before they will give out their seal of approval. Any legitimate dealer who claims to have certified organic products will provide the name of his or her certification agency and can usually provide copies of his or her certificates on request.

Most of the organic growers in Europe are certified by an independent body called Ecocert, but there are also soil associations in most countries and some government agencies that certify organic products. the requirements for certification are many.The soil where the plant material is grown must be tested and confirmed to be free of chemical applications for a special number of years (this differs from country to country and agency to agency). Seeds must come from organically cultivated plants and must not be treated with fungicides, pesticides, growth hormones, or other chemicals;

In some organisations seeds from non-organically grown but chemical -free sources are permitted. Cultivation of the plants from the moment of seed germination must be free of synthetic or chemical applications, and fertilizers must be natural composts or manures from (ideally ) organically raised animals. many distillers use the "muka", or waste from the distillation as fertilizer, creating a natural cycle and returning to the earth that which was taken out.

Weeding which is achieved on most farms on most farms by the use of herbicides and weed killers, must instead be undertaken by hand and by the use of mulch. Plastic and fibre mulching sheets have been developed for just this purpose, and interesting discoveries about plant behaviour have come from the use of these mulch sheets. Tomatoes, it appears, are highly competitive plants , and by using red mulch sheets under the plants , growers can use the tomatoes' competitiveness to promote the production of more fruit.

So you can see that not only is organic farming labor intensive and complex but the certification of these methods is also extremely difficult. Farmers pay a lot of money to receive their certificate; it is the only way that certification organizations like Ecocert, Demeter, and others can afford to operate.If the process did not pay for itself, certification agencies would have to turn to corporate or government financing, which might influence the process or criteria. Again, the cost of certification must be factored into the price of the final products. 

There are also associations like Demeter, that certify biodynamically grown plant material. The biodynamic growing process goes one step beyond organic growing in that every aspect of cultivation, from germination and planting to weeding, composting, mulching, and harvesting, it is done in accordance with the natural rhythms of earth the planets and the plants themselves.  farmers play music too the crops and talk to them to promote growth and, of course, ask permission before harvest.

in the days before artifical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, all plant material was either harvested from the wild or grown organically. It made sense to follow the cycles of the moon, the seasons, the rains, the movement of animals and peoples. In ancient Egypt the flooding of the Nile was part of the very fabric of life, and even the pharaoh's power ws judged on the abundance of the yearly flood. So biodynamics include the rhythms of human beings as well.

However, with the advent of modern agricultural techniques and the proliferation of chemical treatments for every aspect of plant production. organic and biodynamic practice all but vanished. Happily, for the last thirty years or so, movements in Europe, and Australia, have encouraged organic growing practices and the biodynamic cultivation of plants for food and health, and thousands of farmers in North America, both large-and-small-scale, are also returning to these time tested methods. In late June 2000, the U.S.Department of Agriculture closed its public comment period before announcing national standards and definitions for organic growing throughout the United States.

A giant leap for humankind!

Although the use of chemicals on plant material designated for human consumption is regulated to some degree, many chemicals were approved decades ago. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States admits that if applications for some of these chemicals were filed today, they would be turned down. But new chemicals are approved every year, and it is often only with twenty-twenty vision of hindsight that we see problems of toxicity to the environment and ourselves.

Fortunately, some of the most destructive chemicals have been removed from the market , and we are a little more careful these days. DDT is a case in point. Banned in 1978 in the United States, DDT was originally considered safe, although we now know how incredibly toxic it is to both humans and the environment. However, a recent major infestation is eastern Canadian conifers prompted some to suggest that DDT be brought back. Fortunately the idea was rejected.

Reference: Hydrosols The Next Aromatherapy: Suzanne catty